


Fey

by Hoodoo



Series: The Long Arm of the Law [7]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: F/M, Horror, Lost and Found, Mentions of Sex, Sweet, Unseelie Court, World Exploration, alien - Freeform, close to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 10:16:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15337725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoodoo/pseuds/Hoodoo
Summary: A Cop Rick/reader adventure from my series, set before Abrogation.





	Fey

**Author's Note:**

> Here was the prompt: _You are draped across moss pillows. Fairies have braided and twined your hair with wildflowers. The air smells like damp earth and honey suckle. You feel pleasantly warm, a little drowsy perhaps. The setting sun casts its last glowing rays through the trees; light and shadows dance across your face. The wind lovingly rustles the leaves of the canopy above. Far off in the distance you can hear a harp and flutes being played ever so gently. You find you are smiling; you are safe here._
> 
> It was just so full of potential that [Rixxy8173571m3W1p3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rixxy8173571m3W1p3/pseuds/Rixxy8173571m3W1p3), [PorkChop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorkChop/pseuds/PorkChop/works), and I couldn't help each writing our takes on it. Find rixxy's story [here](https://rixxy8173571m3w1p3.tumblr.com/post/175155436324/dwc-prompt-you-are-draped-across-moss-pillows) and porkchop's [here](https://porkchop-ao3.tumblr.com/post/175155490792/you-are-draped-across-moss-pillows-fairies-have).

“Want to go some place?” Rick asked you.

Sweat was drying on your body and you were slowly catching your breath from the sweet rough-and-tumble playtime the two of you had indulged in. You loved it when he was so eager to see you that, fresh off a shift on the force, his hair was still damp from the station house’s shower. Tonight had been one of those days, where he burst through the portal and immediately gathered you to him, kissing you like he hadn’t seen you for months, even though it’d only been a week. 

It wasn’t a scared, ‘I thought I’d never see you again’ kind of desperation; just a, ‘I want to be with you so much’ adoration and need.

He’d pulled you to your bed, barely taking his lips from yours, and you’d both made short work of little things like clothing that kept you separated.

Typically you’d get some dinner, or veg out in front of the television, or maybe go see a movie after a quick roll in the hay like that. But you take in the small smile at the corners of his lips, and it seemed liked Rick was suggesting something different. Something special. 

Of course you agree. 

⁂

So you’d washed up and he’d layed out a flowy skirt and top for you, instead of your standard ‘going out’ clothing. You thought he’d neglected to pick out panties and a bra for you, but he assured you he hadn’t forgotten; he told you not to wear them.

Brazenly you slipped a hand down the front of his trousers and found he hadn’t put his underwear on again either. You grin lecherously up at him, and chuckle that you have a pretty good idea of what he may want to do when you get to wherever. 

He smiles, but doesn’t implicitly agree. 

You dress. The thin fabric of your clothing sticks to your still damp skin. Rick takes your hand, leads you out your front door, types some unknown coordinates into the portal gun, and opens a doorway. 

Like all portals, you can’t see through it. Keep a tight hold on his fingers, you hold your breath as you step through. 

⁂

Every beautiful place you could imagine on Earth was here. Misty forests with trees so tall you can’t see their tops. Meadows of bright sunlight, dotted with exotic wild flowers and humming with insect life. In the distance you can see craggy, snow-capped mountains. There’s blue water so clear on the coastline that could be one or fifty feet deep, and solid, slate-colored lakes that you can’t see the bottom of at all. 

You and Rick walk from one place easily to the next. None of these ecosystems should be anywhere near each other, and the transition from one to the next is hazy, like walking through thick fog. You can’t see exactly where one stops and the next begins. You keep hold of his hand and exclaim over each new sight.

Rick lets you lead, and watches your joy, smiling indulgently. 

Nothing here is dangerous. You haven’t even seen a vine or rock to trip over; it’s like this place was made for relaxing and just being in the beauty of nature. Eventually you release his hand. While he drops rocks into one of those bottomless mountain lakes, to see the ripples they creates, you skip ahead.

You’re enveloped by the fog again, and are in a deciduous forest. A mist curls around your feet. The ground is soft with loam. The light here is diffuse, like it’s twilight, and everything is hushed. 

In another second, Rick is by your side.

“Don’t wander off,” he scolds gently. 

“I wasn’t. I just wanted to see what was next--oh! What’s that!”

Ahead of you, something moves between the trees. Although the forest is not dense with undergrowth by any means, whatever it is is hard to make out due to the mist and distance away. 

“Let’s go see!” you say, and take off again. 

You hear Rick hurry after you, calling something that sounds like, “Wait, baby! I--” but the wind steals his words. 

You chase the thing. It leads further into the trees, and you only get glimpses of it: A sleek haunch, a hoof, a white flip of the underside of a tail. The pointed tines of antlers. 

It’s teasing you, staying just far enough ahead that you can’t get a real look at it. You follow, darting around tree trunks, slipping down into small valleys and going on all fours to scramble up the next hill. 

You’ll catch it soon, you tell yourself, and yell your optimism back to Rick. Just a little further, just over the next rise, just around the next few trees--

So intent on the chase, you lose track of Rick behind you. You’re breathless, even here where the air is so crisp with oxygen it enlivens you. You wipe the back of your hand across your forehead and lean against the nearest tree. 

Something giggles near you in a high pitch. 

You look to your left. “Rick?”

There is no reply. 

You look to your right, and are almost face-to-face with the beast you’d been following.

It’s a stag. It’s larger than you expected, larger than you thought you knew they were. It’s coat is dappled deep red. Its eyes hold an intelligence, and its antlers are draped lightly with strings of crystals. It flicks its tail, dips its head, and moves off again.

Its hooves don’t sink into the loam like your feet do. 

You want to pet it, if that wouldn’t offend it. You want to offer it sugar and pears and lychees and other sweets; you want to walk beside it and just be near it; it’s a Beast that seems kind and wise. 

Rick hasn’t caught up yet. You figure he will, eventually, and hurry after the stag.

⁂

You finally caught up to it, sort of. It lead you to a hidden clearing; an oasis in this unending misty forest with a small pool fed by a babbling creek. There are more flowers here than you saw in the meadow, even though the trees’ sweeping branches overhead block most of the sun. Ferns dot the area too. The stag’s bed is here; a spot of soft grasses that the stag settles into, his delicate legs folding under him. He chews his cud serenely. 

No matter what you thought to yourself earlier, you’re afraid to approach too closely. You don’t think he would attack you, but that crown of antlers could do severe damage if he chose. You settle as close as you dare to the stag. He barely gives you a glance.

You didn’t realize how tired you were until you sat down. You drift in the weighlessness between sleep and awake.

An unknown time later, you open your eyes.

You are draped across moss pillows. Fairies have braided and twined your hair with wildflowers. The air smells like damp earth and honey suckle. You feel pleasantly warm, a little drowsy perhaps. 

The setting sun casts its last glowing rays through the trees; light and shadows dance across your face. The wind lovingly rustles the leaves of the canopy above. Far off in the distance you can hear a harp and flutes being played ever so gently. 

You find you are smiling; you are safe here. Nothing can harm you here . . .

You let your eyelids drift shut again, with a smile still on your face.

⁂

“Baby? Baby!”

That sound--it’s a word?--should have some meaning, but for the life of you, you can’t place it.

_“Baby!”_

You lift your head, and the tiny fairies flitter away. The music at the edges of your hearing halts. The soft breeze takes on a slightly cooler temperature.

The stag lifts his head, his ears sharp and alert. He snorts.

Suddenly, a man crashes into the clearing. He’s winded and sweaty. Bedraggled. There are rips in his clothing, twigs in his hair, and scratches on exposed skin. The expression on his face is pure panic.

“Baby!” he cries again, sighting you. He stumbles forward, towards you. 

The stag, spooked, leaps to his feet. Snorting, he crashes off through the the ferns and wildflowers, his tail a white flag of alarm. The sound of his escape is loud and racuous.

The man ignores all of that and grabs at you. You’re startled as well, and your minds feels fuzzy. What is all this? Who is this, making this noise, and looking so haggard and dirty?

You want to run like the deer, and actually stagger to your feet, but the man finally lays a hand on you, his long fingers encircling your wrist. 

Instantly your mind clears and the scene around you changes. You’re no longer in a secret paradise, with floral-scented air and tiny, humanoid pixies. There is no pool of invitingly clear water housing glittery fish and lily pads. No speck of color from exotic flowers mets your eye.

You’re sitting on a rock on the edge of a windswept cliff. The few trees clinging to rocks have exposed roots and bare branches reaching into the sky. There is water: a sickly, slow-moving stream that has formed a dessicating pool of brackish liquid, with muddy foam around its edges, before it sluggishly crawls over the edge of the cliff. The fairyfolk are carrion beetles, mostly skittering on the ground but some flying aimlessly. You raise your hand to your head and there are no flowers entwined there, just knots. Some dried bones of unidentified species litter the area. The area has the bottom note of rot, and everything is grey and brown.

“Oh baby, baby--I found you! Oh thank god, I found you!” Rick babbles.

You’re extremely tired. And so thirsty! You don’t think you’ve ever been so thirsty! Your lips are cracked. You open your mouth to ask him what is going on; all that comes out is a dry croak, like you haven’t used your voice forever. 

You cough and swallow to try and clear it. It hurts. 

Rick pats your back. He helps steady you on your feet--you didn’t realize how weak you were until you tried to stand, and he has to pick you up because your knees gave out. 

“Let’s get you home,” he tells you.

You cling to him as best you can as he moves away from the cliff’s edge, onto less precarious ground, back in the true forest. Once there, he juggles his portal gun out, enters the coordinates, and the familiar doorway appears. As he steps through, you see the stag standing in the treeline.

It’s no longer majestic, except in size. Its fur is dull, mottled, and moth-eaten, with blistered skin showing through in patches, like it is diseased. There is no fine chain of jewelry draped about its antlers, like it’s a cherished pet; instead, clumps and rags and strings of unrecognizable gore hang from the tines. Blood, so dark and old that it is black, is dried on its muzzle, neck and chest. Beetles and flies circle it.

The only thing that remained the same was the intelligence in its eye. Its gaze doesn’t leave yours. Only the Rick stepping through the portal back to your front door breaks the eye contact.

⁂

Rick bathes you. He gives you minute amounts of water to drink, slowly; you’re so dehydrated any large amount would shock your stomach and make you vomit. He puts you in your bed carefully. He babies you and never, never stops apologizing.

“I’m sorry, baby, I forgot. I forgot about that-- _thing._ I never should have taken you there! I wanted to show you how pretty it could be, all the different landscapes. I should have, should have remembered! _I am so sorry!”_ he says on repeat. 

You try to tell him that you don’t understand. What happened? What was that thing? Why are you so thirsty and exhausted?

He doesn’t want to tell you. You insist, and stricken, because he feels so guilty, he finally does. It was something that lured its victims, enraptured them, took them away. It didn’t kill them itself. It just waited, while its victims stayed enchanted in the glamour, until eventually they grew so weak with starvation and dehydration they died, and then it feasted on them. It was the stuff of nightmares. It was the stuff of legend, a denizen of the Unseelie Court, the source of the old fairy stories where people disappeared into the land of the Fey, never to return. Or if they did, so much time had passed . . .

His voice faded. 

“How much time, Rick?” you croak.

His blue eyes are haunted. He looks his age, like he hasn’t slept for so long. 

“Just five days, baby,” he whispers to you. “I couldn’t find you for five days.”

You’d been missing for five days? All you had done was sit down in that clearing and close your eyes! You can’t wrap your head around it. No wonder you’re so weak!

“I had to leave,” he confesses, miserably. “The portal gun--it-it-it, it was set to got back to the Citadel . . . I had to leave! But right away I got special clearance--threatened a few Ricks, pulled a few strings--I got special cl-clearance for an extended permit and I, I went back, and I looked and looked and looked for you--I searched that fucking place for four days before I found you--”

His faces screws up and he fights hard not to cry. As feeble as you are, you force yourself to pull him to you.

“It’s okay, Rick,” you whisper with your sandpaper voice. “You found me! I shouldn’t have run off, you told me not to! Thank you! Thank you!”

You forgive him, but it will be some time before he forgives himself. You hold each other, that night. You kiss him, and his tears wet your parched lips. 

_fin._


End file.
